Celebrating the Dogged Search to Do Good

Applying for impactful roles, building new skills, and learning about doing good effectively can be a draining process. It may mean swallowing sunk costs and spending evenings and weekends pursuing a career transition on top of your day job. I think one of the hardest parts of a high-impact career is starting. I want to celebrate those who pursue impactful work.

In this post, I’ll:

1. Acknowledge a few factors that make starting out in direct work particularly challenging.
2. Suggest that despite these factors, it’s often worth pursuing direct work.
3. Share a few accessible project ideas for someone interested in building a track record of impactful wins. I think this is one of the best ways of strengthening your candidacy for full-time EA work.

Why starting out can be so hard

Especially for people who don’t have personal connections in the EA movement, it’s easy to have blind spots. The vernacular can be so obscure that even Google Docs labels certain terms as typos (e.g. “BOTEC”, “fungibility”, “cruxiest”). Many of EA’s core frameworks (thinking on the margin, scout mindset, scope sensitivity, etc.) aren’t widely circulated outside the movement, and those who aren’t aware of these ideas could learn and implement them if they were made aware. EA organizations tend to communicate in a style idiosyncratic to the rest of the working world, and work tests tend to favor those who are familiar with EA-style thinking. 

These factors, alongside the huge number of applications per open role and the lack of structured internships^[1], can stack the deck against candidates looking to break into high-impact work. I hope that those giving time to the pursuit^[2] of an impactful career (whether applying for jobs, learning/developing skills tailored towards impact, or volunteering) are proud of the long-run good their effort is building towards, even if they aren’t having the impact they hope to just yet. 

The case for perseverance

I think the opportunity to add value in directly impactful roles is enormous. In 80,000 Hours’ 2018 Talent Survey, participating EA organizations stated a willingness to pay ~$1M for three years of contributions from a junior hire (either at their org or others), and ~$7.4M for three years of contributions from a senior hire. I’m not aware of more recent surveys asking organizations this question, but it’s possible that this premium would have risen:

• Inflation has increased by 32% since this survey.
• The ratio of dollars spent per year to people in the movement seems to have increased.^[3]
• There is the potential for considerably more money to enter the movement, such that talent is a comparatively greater bottleneck.

Anecdotally, the tenure of aligned talent across high-impact orgs seems quite high - I would guess considerably greater than three years. This is to say, once people start a high-impact job, it seems like they continue working in an impactful role for a number of years (whether at their org or a different org). My sense is that job security in EA orgs is strong relative to the rest of the workforce. I think this is in part because value-aligned employees are so passionate about doing good work; I feel significantly more motivated to do great work at Coefficient Giving than I ever have in school. 

Most people doing impactful work didn't start there as soon as they wanted to. Of the thousands of examples to choose among, I’ll highlight that:

• Aaron Gertler spent years on and off applying before landing the type of mission driven job he was hoping for. Since then, he ran the EA Forum for over three years, then helped build out Coefficient Giving’s comms function for over four years, and currently produces research content at 80,000 Hours.
• Seth Ariel Green wrote about spending 14 years across tech, travel and grad school before finding a research role at the Humane and Sustainable Food Lab.
• Constance Li finished her MD, spent three years in residency as a doctor and started a small business to donate to animal charities. She felt like she could have more impact by working directly in animal welfare, then founded two awesome animal welfare nonprofits.
• I worked as a poker dealer for years without consistently putting myself out there for impactful jobs. I had been rejected from a few roles and didn't feel qualified to work at an EA org. Eventually I did start applying again, and when I spoke with 80,000 Hours I realized there were a handful of jobs I might be qualified for.

For me (and I’d guess most people who start a role they’re passionate about), it took a while to feel like I was adding the value I wanted to. One reason I underrated switching to direct work is that I thought about my present day capacities to contribute, rather than the person I might turn into after a few years on the job^[4]. I would encourage readers to think of the early months at a job as accelerating their path to the change they want to affect. If your job isn’t providing this, it’s worth thinking through other ways you can build towards one that does.

I also think the value of experiential learning is hard to overstate; I had more career-relevant learnings in my first year at Coefficient Giving than in all of high school, college, and grad school combined. 

Resources and new project ideas for building a track record of impact

For those who are interested in impactful roles, I recommend Tristan Williams’ compilation of career resources. I think the contained posts have great advice, and the structured steps from programs like Probably Good, Animal Advocacy Careers, and 80,000 Hours are valuable ways to start your search (e.g. reading about career pathways from articles on these websites, applying for career advising and the roles on their job boards, joining cohorts like High Impact Professionals and EA Virtual Programs, applying for part-time or short term opportunities, etc.) For students, I think starting or organizing a university EA group is exceptionally valuable.

But after taking these steps, many job-seekers still struggle to land the role they’re looking for. Building on Sofia Balderson’s great post about the value of volunteer work, here are a few project ideas with minimal barriers to entry that I’d be excited to see self-starting talent take on:

Organized university alumni network advocacy

E.g. reaching out to executives/board members at food companies who went to your college to discuss animal welfare. I would guess that a university connection significantly improves response rates, and a leader in the animal welfare movement told me that if you can get a food executive to spend an hour discussing animal welfare, that might be more time than they spend engaging with the issue the entire rest of the year. After developing proof of concept, you could share what works with other advocates and coordinate a broader outreach push. 

Similarly, reaching out to your university about a class related to EA, or featuring a book like Doing Good Better or The Life You Can Save as their summer pre-read for incoming freshmen, can help a number of students learn about doing good effectively. 

Exploring neglected effective fundraising channels

E.g.

• Setting up fundraising events in affluent areas for effective nonprofits. This may be particularly lucrative if the nonprofits have broad appeal like GiveWell, Project Resource Optimization, Giving Green, or an effective charity based near the community (e.g. CA Yimby, Open New York, etc.)
• Speaking with Corporate Social Responsibility staff to facilitate high-impact corporate philanthropy.

Specialized or trust-based service provision through the EA Anywhere Slack

I recommend joining the EA Anywhere Slack and posting how you may be able to help others in the introductions channel. Examples could include:

• “I live in X city and I’m excited to commit Y hours per week to helping with in-person events, or scouting office spaces/retreat venues for organizations, etc. Please reach out if your org could use support!”
• “I have experience with X skill which I think high-impact orgs could benefit from. I’d love to help your org. ” 
  • Example skills could range from copyediting, improving social media strategy, negotiation, AI enablement and infosecurity, incorporating a legal entity, government relations, submitting successful grant applications to foundations outside the EA movement, etc.
• “I’d love to hear what pain points your org has: I’ll be happy to spend some time researching what solutions other orgs have found.”

Career newsletters tailored towards new audiences

I put together a newsletter about impactful careers for policy masters students, largely drawing on EA job boards and the EA DC newsletter. Student interest has been high (less than 5% of joiners end up unsubscribing, open and clickthrough rates are encouraging), and I think it would be interesting to spread impactful career resources to other groups doing good. This could look like:

• Replicating this for other masters programs (e.g. Public Health, Sustainability, Divinity, Social Work); reaching out to current students to share a signup form with peers in their program, then sending a monthly newsletter (which itself links to other career infrastructure like Probably Good, 80k, etc.)
• Asking university career service centers if they’re willing to feature career resources you send on their online career portals.
• Looking into acquiring social impact newsletters (then potentially applying for funding to purchase and run the newsletter).

Lining up speaking engagements for thought leaders

If you have personal connections to large platforms, it could be hugely valuable to help thought leaders share messaging about effective giving and careers with new audiences. This could look like:

• TV and film contacts interested in helping EA continue to tell its story (e.g., Zorilla, Kokotajlo, Wildeford, MacAskill)
• Conferences or podcasts (e.g., Bollard, Boeree, MacAskill)
• Faith, university, or corporate event platforms that can host book tours or presentations

Proposing and leading impactful volunteering projects within existing service groups 

If your city, university, or employer organizes volunteering projects, leading a high-impact project could help improve the impact of a large group’s efforts. For example, the EA Foundation organized a volunteer advocacy drive in support of foreign aid that led the city of Zurich to contribute millions of dollars toward development assistance. It could be worth reaching out to your local Rotary International chapter to see if they may be excited in supporting similar international development efforts.

I could also imagine you might find traction by arranging impactful volunteer events for university clubs. In my experience, service-oriented club participants often enjoy social activities that help them make friends by spending a weekend on a cause they care about. This could look like door-knocking/phone banking for impactful political change within a civic activism club, or coordinating group conference volunteering at AVA or Sentient Futures for a vegan club. 
 

If you have other ideas for valuable and accessible ways to build a track record of impact, please post them in the comments! 

The scale of opportunity available to us

I want to close with a thought experiment. Imagine you could meet two versions of yourself in 20 years: one who found their way to high-impact work (named Qaly) and one who didn’t (named Wally). They each describe their lives. 

Overall, it sounds like they’re similarly happy - Qaly worked an extra ten hours per week for a year before they finally got their break at a malaria vaccine advocacy organization. Their job was lower paid than Wally’s, but they found the work more rewarding and they liked their coworkers more. Eventually, Qaly was promoted to lead a team at this organization, and Wally passed the certifications necessary to become an actuary.

At first, Qaly shouldered some judgment from their parents for deviating from a conventional career, but in the end the parents made peace with the decision. The emotional weight of the work took its occasional toll, but Qaly felt a thrill following the successes they contributed to that Wally didn’t get from their job.

Both Qaly and Wally had similar families, similar hobbies, and similar levels of self-reported happiness each year. What was meaningfully different about their lives? In the world where you grow up to be Qaly, 100 other people who would have died of malaria get to experience the joy of life.

The message I’m hoping to convey isn’t that “everybody pays their dues.” It’s that due-paying is really hard, yet enormously valuable. If you are pursuing work that helps others: thank you. You belong in this community.

1. ^{^}

   Though the School For Moral Ambition is piloting summer internships with impactful organizations, and may scale up these opportunities next year! 

2. ^{^}

   As others have helpfully noted, pursuing impact could mean working outside of EA orgs to gain experience supporting your professional growth. E.g., Daniela Amodei’s work as Field Director on a congressional campaign may have built aptitudes for growing and managing teams in fast-paced, competitive environments.

3. ^{^}

   As a rough proxy: this post shows that the EA movement allocated $295M in 2018. Alexander Berger’s letter from the CEO states that in 2026, Coefficient Giving aims to significantly outspend the >$1 billion it directed in 2025. This implies that the growth in money moved from Coefficient Giving alone seems to outpace the growth in engaged EAs (which appears to increase by roughly ~10-15% per year, accounting for backlash from FTX, per Rethink Priorities and CEA community surveys).  

^{^}

I’m pretty confident that if I’d kept dealing poker for four more years before working at an EA org, I wouldn’t have been able to add much more to the work in 2026 than I did when I switched in 2022.

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